The O’BRAIN Lab’s goal is to dis­en­tan­gle these inter­ac­tions by tack­ling diverse research ques­tions. For this pur­pose we draw upon exper­tise from mul­ti­ple sci­en­tif­ic dis­ci­plines such as neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy, psy­chol­o­gy, cog­ni­tive sci­ence, math­e­mat­ics and med­i­cine. This joint effort is made pos­si­ble through gen­er­ous fund­ing for two main lines of research:

Deci­sion-mak­ing in Obe­si­ty: Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy, Behav­ior, and Plas­tic­i­ty, a research group with­in the Inte­grat­ed Research and Treat­ment Cen­ter (IFB) Adi­pos­i­ty­Dis­eases

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The goal of this research group is to under­stand mal­adap­tive deci­­sion-mak­ing in obe­si­ty.
Deci­­sion-mak­ing depends cru­cial­ly on learned, part­ly auto­mat­ic asso­ci­a­tions between stim­uli and their out­comes, the val­u­a­tion of choice options, as well as the flex­i­bil­i­ty to adapt behav­ior to cur­rent needs and goals. We inves­ti­gate dif­fer­ences between groups of lean and obese indi­vid­u­als in sev­er­al sub-process­es of deci­­sion-mak­ing. The group main­ly uses cog­ni­tive tasks com­bined with func­tion­al mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing (fMRI) to inves­ti­gate behav­ior, brain struc­ture and func­tion. Addi­tion­al­ly, we use spe­cif­ic olfac­to­ry and gus­ta­to­ry stim­u­la­tion, and record­ing of eye move­ments. In addi­tion we exam­ine the influ­ence of mod­u­lat­ing fac­tors such as moti­va­tion, stress, gen­der, home­o­sta­t­ic state, geno­type and per­son­al­i­ty traits. Based on the obtained results, inter­ven­tion stud­ies are planned that we hope will either alter the brain’s endoge­nous poten­tial for neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty or tar­get exoge­nous fac­tors that ren­der deci­­sion-mak­ing in obe­si­ty dis­ad­van­ta­geous.

Neu­rocog­ni­tive Mod­els of Behav­ioral Con­trol in Obe­si­ty – The mod­u­lat­ing effects of dynam­ic changes in cen­tral dopamin­er­gic tone, a sub­pro­ject of the Col­lab­o­ra­tive Research Cen­tre (SFB) 1052 “Obe­si­ty Mech­a­nisms”

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The goal of this project is to under­stand the inter­ac­tion of dietary com­po­si­tion, alter­ations with­in the dopamin­er­gic sys­tem, and the devel­op­ment of obe­si­ty.
The neu­ro­trans­mit­ter dopamine plays a cen­tral role in sev­er­al cog­ni­tive key domains such as (food) moti­va­tion, rein­force­ment learn­ing, and mem­o­ry. Ani­mal research sug­gests that dietary intake of fat and sug­ar impacts on the dopamin­er­gic sys­tem. Our recent results point towards (a) promi­nent alter­ations in these domains in over­weight and obe­si­ty and (b) a non-lin­ear rela­tion­ship between mark­ers of obe­si­ty and the cen­tral ner­vous trans­mis­sion effi­ca­cy of dopamine. With­in this project, we aim to elu­ci­date the indi­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tion of these fac­tors and their effect on brain func­tion and behav­ior. We will test the effects of phar­ma­co­log­i­cal manip­u­la­tion to cen­tral dopamin­er­gic trans­mis­sion in human obe­si­ty uti­liz­ing behav­ioral test­ing, func­tion­al mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing (fMRI), and neu­rocog­ni­tive mod­el­ing, the lat­ter pro­vid­ing a direct link of behav­ioral and neur­al effects on the indi­vid­ual lev­el. Fur­ther, we will inves­ti­gate the inter­ac­tion of ‘nat­ur­al’, i.e. genet­ic, mod­u­la­tors of DA trans­mis­sion with obe­si­­ty- and diet-asso­­ci­at­ed alter­ations in dif­fer­ent brain regions. The results will pro­vide the basis for an extend­ed under­stand­ing of obe­si­ty and the devel­op­ment of nov­el ther­a­pies.

RESOURCES & INFRASTRUCTURE

Since the O’BRAIN Lab is embed­ded in Leipzig’s Max Planck Insti­tute for Human Cog­ni­tion & Brain Sci­ence we’re ful­ly equipped – addi­tion­al­ly to our own resources – on a vari­ety of method­olog­i­cal devices.

With the help of MRI the O’BRAIN Lab aims to go one step fur­ther and explore neur­al cor­re­lates of these obe­si­ty-relat­ed behav­ioral dif­fer­ences. All MRI-tech­niques use strong but harm­less mag­net­ic fields to image the human brain. Stud­ies of the O’BRAIN Lab make use of MR-scan­ners at mag­net­ic field strengths of 3 Tes­la and 7 Tes­la.

In basic terms, eye track­ing is the mea­sure­ment of eye activ­i­ty. An eye track­er is a device that uses pro­jec­tion pat­terns and opti­cal sen­sors to gath­er data about eye posi­tion, gaze direc­tion or eye move­ments. It is a tech­nique com­mon­ly used in var­i­ous fields of research, includ­ing psy­chol­o­gy, biol­o­gy, neu­rol­o­gy and med­i­cine.

Depend­ing on the nature of the exper­i­ment, our lab pro­vides a vari­ety of resources to col­lect data; some infor­ma­tion about your per­son you can enter your­self via ques­tion­naires on the com­put­er. Your data is secure­ly stored on the servers of the Max Planck Insti­tute.

Oth­er sen­so­ry method­olog­i­cal resources are our mul­ti­stim­u­la­tor, that encap­su­lates an olfac­tome­ter and a gus­tome­ter. These two devices allow the inclu­sion of per­cep­tu­al expe­ri­ences like smell and taste into exper­i­men­tal set­tings. A hand clench dynamome­ter is an iso­met­ric hand grip device that pro­vides direct read­ing of clench force in kg.

COLLABORATIONS

Name

Depart­ment

Insti­tu­tion

City

Coun­try

Yvonne Böttch­er

Depart­ment of Clin­i­cal Mol­e­c­u­lar Biol­o­gy

Uni­ver­si­ty of Oslo

Oslo

Nor­way

Kai von Klitz­ing, Sarah Bergmann // Annette Klein

Adipöse Eltern – adipöse Kinder

IFB Adi­pos­i­ty­Dis­eases

Leipzig

Ger­many

Stef­fi Riedel-Heller

Insti­tute of Social Med­i­cine, Occu­pa­tion­al Health and Pub­lic Health